Customer Reviews

Die Meistersinger

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Die Meistersinger was the first Wagner opera I heard, and of them all it is the most unique. The comic nature of Die Meistersinger is exemplified in the marvelous casting in this recording, chosen well by Karajan. Kollo is perfect for the role of Walther: a fine romantic Heldentenor. Eva (played by Donath) has the perfect charm and tone for the role, and Adam's Sachs is lovable and charming. Schreier's David is just right for the young, animated personality of the apprentice. Magdalena, played by Hesse, has the perfect sound of an "old maid," and Ridderbusch gives Pogner a wonderful fatherly tenderness. Beckmesser most of all is splendid; Evans gave an exemplary performance in the portrayal of Beckmesser's pomposity and awkwardness.

The greatest recording of Die Meistersinger I have yet heard. Kudos!

On a cold February Sunday afternoon in 1989 I watched an old and wizened man painfully shuffle onto the stage of Carnegie Hall. As he grasped the handrails placed around the podium I smiled nervously in gratitude that his ordeal was over. It was Will alone that forced his baton upwards. Thus began an astounding 90 minutes of music. The Bruckner 8th Karajan conducted that day was his valedictory, his farewell to music: and to the audience, his fellow voyagers, a glimpse of the beyond. A few months later he was dead.

I confess to being a fan of Karajan...the early Karajan of the 1950's through 70's before illness slowed his wand and his unerring vision of orchestral clarity and transparent vocal textures failed. Most of my favorite recorded Opera's of that era are conducted by him. This recording of Meistersinger is evidence of his greatness, if it is evidence you need. Arguments over this singer's aptness or that one's tonal quality are irrelevant when confronted with four and a half hours of matchless sublimity. It is the totality of this performance that recommends it. The slightly guttural sound of the Dresden brasses. The richness of the strings. The Vox Humana woodwinds. All make Wagner's most humane Opera breathe. This orchestra's Central European distinctiveness, slightly coarse and without that sheen the flashier Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics are (justly) famous for, heighten the down-to-earth nature of this Opera. No Gods. No Gold. No powerful jewelry. Just a shoemaker and a nervous song writer.

Theo Adam is not everyone's cup of pilsener. His tone is cruder than I'd like, perhaps. But he's not Wotan. The slight inelegance of his voice enhances his performance. Kollo has always been difficult for me to judge. That reediness that creeps into his voice can annoy me if I'm in a bad mood. A sort-of SpongeBob KolloPants. But then Meistersinger is a comedy. Peter Schreier has always been one of my favorite singers and I find him perfect here. Riderbusch, likewise. Helen Donath makes a fine Wagnerian ingenue. Evans avoids taking his performance of Beckmesser over-the-top. That's not easy. The part almost screams for cheap laughs. No performance detracts from the proceedings.

The real stars, however, are Wagner and Karajan. This is a great Opera. It requires a unifying vision to make it all work. Recordings of this Opera are infrequent. Great ones are rare. This is one of the rare ones. Not a Reference recording but certainly an important one. If you must choose one Meistersinger (of course, true Wagnerians never face that problem), I strongly recommend this recording. The sound is typical EMI of the era: warm and clear with a lifelike three-dimensionality creating a nice illusion of stage space. Of course, if your budget enables you to supplement this record with one or two others, the recent Sawallisch-Heppner effort merits serious consideration. 5 out of 5 stars for a great recording.

I think the reviewer who complains of Karajan's 'queer and ditry sounds' may be getting confused with his 1951 live Bayreuth recording. This one, recorded in the studio in 1970, has excellent sound for its time, especially in its most recent reissue. Although it's a studio recording, Karajan made long takes with very few remakes, and the resultant atmosphere is almost as good as a live performance. The singers, if not always ideally suited vocally to their roles, are nevertheless excellent as a team with the whole performance adding up to considerably more than the sum of its parts. The one performance with which nobody could quibble is that of Karl Ridderbusch as Pogner: his voice is incredibly beautiful. Helen Donath is rather light and bright-toned for Eva, but she certainly sounds youthful, sings beautifully, and creates a winning character. Neither of the two tenors, Kollo and Schreier, sounds particularly attractive, but Kollo is fresher than he often has been, and is suitably ardent. Schreier brings a lieder singer's attention to words to David's long speech in act one - necessary if the scene isn't to become tedious - and he always excels in this type of role. Geraint Evans has gone for all-out caricature rather than real singing in his portrayal of Beckmesser, which isn't to my taste, but on its own terms it works. Ruth Hesse is a rather stodgy Magdalene, but I suppose that isn't inappropriate. Theo Adam is a likeable Sachs and brings much to the character although, as usual, his tone is narrower than that of many interpreters. I don't find this a problem, although some may. The chorus work is excellent.

With the recording now available at mid price, I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with it.

This is definately a superb recording, without a doubt. No part of the recording was less than adequate, but all of the small shortcomings made me demote it to four stars. First of all, let's talk about Sachs. Theo Adam's portrayal of Sachs is definately fabulous interpretively, but is lacking the correct type of voice. I feel that Sachs should be played by a more weighty voice, such as Schoffler, Edelmann, or Morris. This is a problem that , while slightly off-putting at first, one can eventually get used to. Next, we come to Walther. Rene Kollo, has just too light a voice for Walther. It is not a big problem, but a true heldontenor (in short supply at the time) would be preferrable. A small quibble. Helen Donath is in the perfect voice for Eva, but gives her too little feeling. Speaking of the Pogners, Karl Ridderbusch is absoutely fantastic as Viet Pogner. His Act I monologue is fantastic. Ruth Hesse as Magdalane and Peter Schrier as David are both excellent for their roles, both vocally and interpretively. Karajan's conducting, while not quite as good as on his earlier recording (it is more pompus) is excellent by any standards. The Staatskapelle Dresden is beyond fault, and plays with a fabulous warmpth and accuracy. Now we come to my main reservation about this recording. The Beckmesser of Geraint Evans. If only he would actually sing the role. He sort of half sings, half speaks the role. Also, he makes him out to be a bit more nasty that he should be. For while he has his nasty side, Beckmesser is not always nasty, as Evans would make him out to be. Despite all of this, and excellent recording.

This is very difficult to review. First, I should say this is a totally satisfactory recording. All of the basic elements of the score (the joy, nobility, pathos and humor) are here in abundance, and it is beautifully performed (by the wonderfully enthusiastic players from Dresden, aided by Donath's lovely Eva and Ridderbusch's amazingly good Pogner) and recorded. However, this Meistersinger always seems restrained, as if Karajan was afraid of being too emotionally connected to the score. Also some of the singing leaves something to be desired. In particular, Theo Adam as Sachs is, for me, totally unimpressive. To me, Sachs is not just a cobbler with musical talent, he is the moral center of this work, one of the wisest characters created for the stage. What makes him especially impressive for me is that Sachs is wise not because he has spent his life in an armchair thinking about philosophical problems, but because he has seen all of life, and is humble enough to see the world as it is. Almost as disturbing, Evans just creates a caricature of Beckmesser. Certainly this is a very common interpretation of the role and is a very safe one, but I really don't see where this comes from. Of course Beckmesser is the essence of a pedant, and a pretty nasty one at that, but he is a human being, not a monster. As I see it, Beckmesser is stuck on the rules of the past because he thinks they are really important in preserving the tradition of the Meistersingers, not because he has some weird hang-up on textbooks. Also, who could doubt that he really has feelings for Eva? Unfortunately, Evans just takes the humanity out of the role by playing him as a prototype for Mime. I realize he was playing it for laughs, but trying to be funny is the surest way of not getting a laugh. The best comedy is when you can't quite decide whether you should laugh because of the absurdity of the situation, or cry because it's so pathetic. To me, Evans' Beckmesser is the clearest example that this recording doesn't really delve into the essence of the work. As in the Ring and Parsifal, Wagner is imagining the youth redeeming their elders who are too conflicted to resolve their issues. Unlike those dramas, Die Meistersinger has the redemption taking place through continuation and rejuvenation of tradition, rather than through renouncing desire. Seen from this perspective, the work is much more serious and philosophically important than when it is seen as a simple comedy, but it is also more joyous, since the triumph comes from the depths of the soul, rather than from a eat, drink, and be merry kind of attitude. Again, none of this subtlety is to be found here.

Another unmissable classic in EMI's Great Recordings of the Century indeed. This set was, in fact, also the first commercially available studio recording of Die Meistersinger. The cast consists mostly of lighter voices (Karajan definitely preferred it that way), but that isn't to the detriment of the opera as long as the voices are as good as they are here. Rene Kollo is quite simply stunning as Walther (how anyone could be negative about this performance beggars belief) - the singing is perhaps best described as luminously beaming with a wonderful presence, but Theo Adam's steady and characterful Hans Sachs is sung with strength and presence and is almost just as satisfying . Among the other male roles, Geraint Evans's Beckmesser is buoyantly mischievous and - as opposed to what some critics seem to think - not overdone. Peter Schreier gives a subtle portrayal of David and Ridderbusch is a calm and authoritative presence. Among the females Helen Donath's Eva is bright and joyfully spirited and Ruth Hesse similarly full of character as Magdalene.

The Dresden Staatskapelle is superb, and Karajan (perhaps surprisingly) seems to have taken care not to overpolish the sound. The end result is a wonderfully paced and sculpted performance colored with gorgeous, but clear textures, fiercely dramatic when needed but never overdone; the climaxes are realized with a real punch (such as the end of the second act) but is always balanced and never makes a mess of the various strands and melodies. It is quite simply a wonderful performance from everyone involved, and the sound quality is superb. Urgently recommended, then.

Die Meistersinger, Wagner's greatest opera (in everybody's humble opinion), seems to present unusual difficulties for the recording companies. This recording, made in 1970, is generally outstanding but has two disappointing flaws. On the plus side, Karajan's conducting is solid; the orchestra and chorus are good but not fussy; Helen Donath is a youthful-sounding Eva with a beautiful tone; and Karl Ridderbusch as Pogner is luminous. One flaw is that Hans Sachs, admittedly a difficult role, is sung by Theo Adam, who does a good but not inspiring job. The other flaw is that certain sound effects necessary for the story are unaccountably omitted, such as the scratch of Beckmesser's chalk in Act I and the laughter of the apprentices in Act III. Perhaps Karajan didn't want any unmusical sounds. On the whole, though, a satisfying recording of a moving work of art.

This was the first Meistersinger recording I bought, and what I noticed at once was the glorous playing of the Dresden Staatskapelle and the great singing of the chourus. I was very satisfied right until Theo Adam, who singer Sachs, began his singing. Theo Adam has a voice that really have get used to, and I have never really did. All the solists, other than Adam, sing their parts beautifully and the conducting by Karajan is very sensitive to the drama and to the comedy. Dispite this, I can't listen to this performance because of Adam. On the Böhm Ring cycle from 1967 did he sing Wotan and Wanderer with a better voice, but when it came to record this performance, his very wobbly voice became very annoying. The only other studio recording that comes close, or even surpass this very well conducted performance, is the Kempe recording with Ferdinand Frantz as Sachs. Now there is a sensitve bass-baritone who sings Sachs very intelligently with an all German cast with also a very good conductor.

How can you go wrong with von Karajan conducting a brilliant cast? This is a delightful recording of this Wagner classic. Under von Karajan's baton, the music becomes warm and engaging. I'm sure I'll listen to this recording again and again.

The Mastersingers is a tribute to popular German art. Folk-art of this kind was probably a romantic illusion of Wagner's own, but he took seriously the idea that each culture should be true to itself, and one reason behind the particular vocal style he adopted in his music-dramas (The Rhinegold and later) was that performances outwith Germany should be able to give them in their own language, something not so easy to achieve with traditional operatic arias. Whether any of this made Wagner the socialist that Shaw liked to think he was I very much doubt. It also seems to me that attempts to find proto-nazism in Die Meistersinger are not only stuff, but also nonsense. It is quite true that towards the end of the work Sachs voices fears for the survival of the German identity, but so far as it goes I can see nothing at all wrong with that. Insofar as the musical tradition was concerned, it was by no means limited to Wagner in any case. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn were thoroughly imbued in their musical idiom with the influence of Italy, but the music of Schumann and Brahms is as completely, consciously and exclusively German as Wagner's own, and as Bach's had been a century and a half earlier.

The Mastersingers is a 'comedy', in something like the sense that that term applies in Shakespeare. It is not rolling-in-the-aisles stuff, and its basic message is deeply thoughtful and serious. There are actually a couple of incidents that I personally find rather amusing. One is the interminable list of rules for composition, and the other is Sachs's explanation to Beckmesser of why the latter's shoes have rather thin soles. Typically, Wagner is at pains to point out his own jokes in case we missed them. The pillorying of Beckmesser, usually identified with the eminent Vienna critic Eduard Hanslick, may be funny to some. It is certainly rather clever. Wagner neatly puts into Beckmesser's mouth some of the tin-eared rubbish that Hanslick had turned out by way of criticism of himself, although without any of Hanslick's wit and turn of phrase which must have been what really wounded Wagner. Where Wagner seems to me to take a really breathtaking risk is in writing a drama round the theme of awarding a prize to a tune of his own composition. It is very hard indeed even to imagine Handel, Mozart or Verdi or anyone else with a more developed sense of humour than Wagner walking into a trap like that. I am reacquainting myself with The Mastersingers after many years, and when young I was inclined to think that I would have withheld the prize in the competition. Wagner's tune bears a faint resemblance to one by Brahms in his 'Mastersingers' violin sonata, and I still think it suffers a little from the comparison. Whether time has mellowed my opinion or just because Wagner gives us the tune quite so often, I think better of it now, and if the resemblance is not coincidence it can only be a deliberate tribute by Brahms, bursting with melodic inspiration himself, to his great polar opposite.

The Mastersingers is described in this set as an opera. I suppose it is, in one sense, but it is still a music-drama first and foremost. Goetterdaemmerung is a bit of an opera too, but not for the best of reasons as here, more of a partial relapse into the unreformed early style of Tannhaeuser. As one expects, Karajan is completely in charge of what he is doing, and there is never a hint of a stylistic lapse, not even, in my view, the way Evans handles the part of Beckmesser. There is a touch of Mime about it, but this is a work dominated by baritone voices, and the differentiation is welcome to my ears. In general, I'm inclined to argue in support of all the male casting. I go a bundle on the voice of Rene Kollo, and have done since I first heard him in the marvellous Brahms Rinaldo that he did with Sinopoli (now there is a work that gives a fascinating glimpse into another direction that German opera might have taken if the composer had found the libretto he was purportedly searching for), and when Kollo sings 'Parnass und Paradies' it was all I could do to concentrate on what I was listening to as Brahms's celestial cadence at 'Paradiese noch einmal', sung by the same voice, came into my head. I like Theo Adam as Sachs, just as I like him as Wotan. I grew up thinking of Hotter as the type of the Wagnerian bass, but Sachs is a modest craftsman, not the prophet Isaiah, and the bemused and futile Wotan is no Zeus, and I have come to prefer a lighter voice in both roles. The Eva and Magdalene seem to me good though not outstanding, although Donath produces a superb final trill at 'so hold zu werben weiss'. The big effects are big indeed here. The tradesmen process like the gods entering Valhalla in The Rhinegold, but in my own view we should think of that comparison the other way round - Wagner's gods are a wretched lot and their Valhalla a miserable tabernacle of delusion, which they enter like the cobblers bakers and tailors of Nuremberg. There is a lot of choral work here, Wagner was no Handel in that regard to put it mildly, but Karajan rightly plays the effect up.

As always with Karajan, there's nothing much to criticise. However in all my life I'm not sure I can remember anything I would rather hear done by him than by anyone else. I have come back to The Mastersingers after a long time and with no other performance in my head, but I had wistful thoughts of how Fuertwaengler or Toscanini or Beecham might have done it. To that 'Silentium! Silentium!', to quote the apprentices. This is a fine issue, this is a great work, and I feel a better man for just having listened to it.